Japan has pledged to buy more American energy products as part of the July trade deal with the United States, but no Japanese refinery is built to handle 100% U.S.-sourced crude, Japan’s refining industry says. In July, the U.S. completed what President Donald Trump touted on Truth Social as “a massive Deal with Japan, perhaps the largest Deal ever made.”  Under the trade agreement, Japan’s goods imported in the United States will face a 15% tariff, lower than the 24% proposed in early April and the 25% tariff…

China has boosted imports of Russia’s flagship Urals crude, as refiners buy additional volumes of discounted oil while India is hesitant amid U.S. threats over its purchases of Russian oil. China is the top buyer of Russian crude, but most of its imports consist of the ESPO grade shipped from Russia’s port of Kozmino in the Far East. Urals, on the other hand, is being shipped from the ports in western Russia to India, and China hasn’t imported much of the grade due to higher shipping costs and longer voyages.   However, with…

A Lukoil refinery in the Russian city of Volgograd is on fire after being hit by Ukrainian drones overnight, Andrey Bocharov, governor of the Volgograd region, said on Tuesday. The Volgograd refinery is Lukoil’s second-biggest crude processing facility in Russia and a key fuel supplier to the southern federal district in the country. Russia has said it had shot down 13 Ukrainian drones over the Volgograd region on August 19, the Kyiv Independent reports. The attack on the Volgograd refinery is the latest in a series of at least half a dozen…